"Over the seas he traveled, and Ung went to the Japanese warlord and offered to protect him from his enemies. The warlord had heard of the Great Wang and since this was his successor, he contracted with Ung to protect him. For an attempt to kill the warlord in his sleep had been made just the night before, and the Japanese knew he was in mortal peril.
"Still he did not know which of his enemies were trying to kill him. There was a family to the north and a family to the south and a family to the east and a family..." "To the west?" said Remo. "Yes," said Chiun. "You have heard this story before?" "No."
"Then be silent. There was a family to the north and a family to the south and a family to the east and a family to the west, and the Japanese warlord did not know which of them might be trying to kill him, because all had reason to fear his reckless and ruthless ambitions.
"But Ung spoke to the warlord in his poetic way. 'When bulls break down fences,' he said, 'sometimes rabbit steal corn.' The warlord thought of this for many hours and then he understood what Ung meant, and he began to think which of his own court might try to kill him so that he himself could take the warlord's place.
"The more he thought of it, the more he came to suspect his eldest son who was evil and cruel, and that night he turned Ung's hand against the
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son and the son was no more. But still later that night, another attempt was made to kill the warlord in his sleep and only the swift intervention of Master Ung saved the Japanese's life.
"The warlord then felt bad that he had suspected his eldest son unjustly but he came to think some more and he realized that it was his second oldest son who was even more evil and cruel than the first-born son. And he turned Ung's hand against that second son.
"But still there was another attempt on his life, again foiled only by Ung's arrival at the very last moment,
"And so it went. One by one, Ung removed the seven sons of the warlord, seven evil young men who, if they had been elevated to the position of warlord, would have been even more ferocious than their father and even more brutal than he in their dealings with their neighbors.
"And when the seventh and last son was dispatched, the warlord and Ung met in the great hall of the palace. And the warlord said, 'We have disposed of all my sons, every one. So the danger is removed and I am again safe.'
"It was more a question than a statement, Remo, since the Japanese are a sneaky people and their questions are really statements and their statements are really questions. But Ung answered, 'Not yet. You still face one danger.'
" 'And what is that?' asked the warlord.
" 'The Master of Sinanju,' said Ung who then proceeded skillfully and quickly to kill the warlord. Because, Remo, you see, this was his contract from the four lords whose lands surrounded
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those of the troublesome one. They wanted him dead, along with his bloodthirsty sons so they could be assured that they would live in peace. And this was how Ung chose to do it. The Great Ung himself had been responsible for the nightly attacks upon the warlord."
Then Chiun was silent, still staring out the window at the plane's left wing.
"So?" asked Remo.
"So? What so?" said Chiun.
"You can't stop a story like that," Remo said. "What does it mean?"
"Is it not obvious?" asked Chiun, finally turning his hazel eyes toward Remo.
"The only thing obvious is that the Masters of Sinanju are always mean, duplicitous men who can't be trusted," Remo said.
"Trust you to misunderstand," Chiun said. "Sometimes I don't know why I bother. The moral of the story is that it is hard to defend yourself against an assassin when you do not know who the assassin is."
"Chiun, that doesn't tell me a damn thing I didn't already know. We know how hard it's going to be to protect the ambassador when we don't know who the button man is."
"You see nothing else in that story?" Chiun asked.
"Not a damn thing," Remo said.
"There is another moral," Chiun said.
"Namely?"
"Danger comes wearing no banners. And the closer it is, the more silent it will be."
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Remo thought for a moment. "Who will watch the watchman?" he suggested.
"Exactly," said Chiun, turning back to the window.
"Little Father?" said Remo.
"Yes, my son," Chiun said.
"That story stinks."
"One cannot describe a stone wall to a stone wall," Chiun said mildly.
It was damp and cold when Remo and Chiun stepped into a cab in the heart of London. Water dripped from Lord Nelson, his statue black in the night, high over the black stone lions of Trafalgar Square.
"How much to the Russian embassy?" Remo asked the cabbie, a warted man with a sweat-soaked cotton cap.
The embassy was only nine blocks away on Dean Street, but the cabbie recognized the American accent.
"Four pounds, lad," he said.
"Take me to Scotland Yard," Remo said. "The taxi fraud office."
"All right, mate. Two pounds and not a penny less. And you'll not get a better price anywhere this foul night."
"Okay," Remo said. "Get it moving."
To make it look good, the cab driver took them through Leicester Square and past Covent Gardens before doubling back to Dean Street.
"Here ye be, lad," the drive said when he pulled up in front of a three-story brick building on the quiet cobblestoned street. A cluster of
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metal piping hung down a wall of the building and a television antenna reached out awkwardly into the black nighttime sky.
"Wait a minute, Chiun," Remo said. "You, too," he told the cabbie.
Remo hopped out of the cab and walked up the three brick steps to the building's front door. The bell was the old-fashioned kind that required manual cranking and Remo gave it three full spins around, setting off the cluster of squawks inside.